1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to fabric for use in covering an architectural opening such as a door, window or for otherwise furnishing the interior of dwellings and more particularly to a fabric, as well as the method and apparatus for manufacturing same, including a plurality of vanes interconnected by a sheet or sheets of face material. When the vanes are oriented vertically, the fabric can be suspended in the architectural opening with a hardware system adapted to slide the vanes laterally of the opening between extended and retracted positions and pivot the vanes about vertical axes between open and closed positions.
2. Description of the Known Art
Coverings for architectural openings such as doors, windows and the like are very common and serve a triple purpose in decorating, providing privacy and insulating an architectural structure. Such coverings have taken numerous forms with early architectural coverings consisting primarily of fabric adjustably positioned over an architectural opening in different manners. For many years, the fabric has been suspended adjacent to the top of the architectural opening by hardware that allowed the fabric to be extended across the opening or retracted adjacent one or two sides of the opening. Folds or pleats have been provided to give the fabric a soft appearance. Such window coverings are commonly referred to as draperies. Fabrics for draperies come in numerous designs and weights so that many aesthetic appearances can be obtained along with varying degrees of insulation. Further, some fabrics are translucent in nature, such as sheers, thereby permitting to some degree the passage of light and vision.
Coverings for architectural openings also include Venetian blinds which consist of parallel horizontal slats of material suspended by tape ladders such that the slats are pivotal about horizontal axes and movable between an open position lying perpendicular to the architectural opening wherein light can be transferred through the opening and a closed position wherein the slats lie parallel to the opening and block the passage of light and vision through the opening. The blinds can also be retracted by lifting the slats so that they are gathered in stacked relationship adjacent to the top of the architectural opening. Venetian binds have added a new dimension to the decorative characteristic of window coverings by providing sharp clean lines which are desirable in certain environments.
Vertical blinds have also been developed which typically include a plurality of vertically suspended vanes that are pivotal about a vertical axis so as to be movable between an open position extending perpendicular to the window opening and a closed position extending parallel to the opening. It has been difficult to design vanes for vertical blinds so that they hang in a straight or untwisted manner from their top to bottom and will not twist from top to bottom when they are rotated about their vertical axis. Vanes made from wood, aluminum or polyvinylchloride have very little if any twist from top to bottom but are hard to the touch and cold visually, therefore rendering them undesirable for many applications. Vertical vanes have been formed from laminated materials, or hybrids of fabric with relatively rigid materials such as polyvinylchloride to soften the touch and the look but each of these vane constructions suffer from various shortcomings.
As will be appreciated, most draperies need to be retracted before permitting the passage of light and vision but are desirable in that they create a soft appearance with many varied aesthetic possibilities. Venetian or vertical blinds are desirable in that they selectively allow the passage of vision and light even when extended across a window opening but are typically more harsh in appearance than draperies. Attempts have accordingly been made at designing coverings for architectural openings which combine the positive features of draperies with the positive features of vertical and venetian blinds to arrive upon an enhanced covering product.
A patent disclosing the incorporation of a drapery look into a vertical blind type window covering is U.S. Pat. No. 3,851,699 issued to Shapiro on Dec. 3, 1974. In the window drape disclosed in the Shapiro patent, a continuous sheet of face fabric is secured to a plurality of vertically extending planar vanes in face-to-face relationship with the planar vanes so as to form a portion of the vane. The sheet of fabric therefore projects alternately off a front edge and rear edge of adjacent vanes.
Another window covering wherein a continuous sheet of face fabric is adhered to a plurality of vertical vanes is disclosed in the U.S. patent to Hyman U.S. Pat. No. 3,844,330 issued on Oct. 29, 1974. The Hyman product is different from Shapiro in that the face fabric is preferably bonded to the vertical vanes only along a top portion of the vane. It is difficult to control the appearance of a window covering constructed in this manner, however, as the face fabric is only connected at a top edge and therefore is free to move independently of the vanes along the majority of the length of the vanes. While Hyman suggests that the face fabric can be connected to the vanes along the entire length of the vanes, it is stated that such would detract from the drapery like appearance of the covering.
The patents to Ronkholz-Tolle, NeeTolle U.S. Pat. No. 3,946,789 issued Mar. 30, 1976, Wulf U.S. Pat. No. 5,012,552 issued May 7, 1991 and Kazuma U.S. Pat. No. 5,109,913 issued May 5, 1992 show other forms of architectural opening covers wherein a face sheet is interconnected to more rigid vertically extending vanes in various manners. In the case of the Ronkholz-Tolle and the Wulf patents, a continuous sheet of face fabric is interwoven around the more rigid vanes while in the Kazuma patent, individual strips of face fabric interconnect more rigid vanes creating a look that might be more similar to conventional vertical blinds than draperies.
The fabric of the present invention, along with its method and apparatus of manufacture, has been developed to overcome shortcomings in prior architectural opening coverings.